Where have all the Bees Gone? Update
Honey bee on brassica (Broccoli)
In May 2006 and May 2007 we reported the mass disappearance of bees, now
the situation has become much worse. The situation is the most extreme in
the the United States where in 2007-2008 bee losses exceeded 30%,
There have been reports of a quarter of all US beekeepers suffering losses
and more than 30 per cent of all bee colonies in the country being
completely wiped out.
The condition has been called colony collapse disorder [CCD].
As yet no single cause of this syndrome has been identified, but many experts talk of factors contributing to the situation. These include mass spraying of crops with pesticides, using systemic pesticides, the mass transporting of bees across the US, and the vast areas of monoculture.
Gone are the many fields of wildflowers and family farms from California and the UK. Wild areas and hedgerows have have been replaced by vast monocultures and adjacentl wild plants(weeds) have been eradicated. The rest of the land is often covered by suburbs and strip malls and enormous tracts of highways.Thus there is nowhere for wild bees to live. These vast monocultures all flower on mass eg Almond plantations in California cover about 1 million acres and flower for about 3 weeks total. So beekeepers now make their money by transporting their bees from one vast crop to the next. In fact they make hundreds of millions of dollars renting out their hives. It is much more profitable than making honey.
Without the mass transport of bee hives which involves large amounts of fossils fuels there would be a serious food shortage. Especially flowering plants like most vegetables, clover and alfalfa for cattle feed.
So it is no wonder there is enormous stress on these bee colonies, and they would be highly susceptible to disease because of their weakened immune systems and malnutrition due to a restricted diet. Add to this genetically modified crops and you have a dangerous mix for bees.
This is the end came for corporate agriculture, which treats everything as an input and demands the lowest costs and maximum work from its employees (in this case the bees). In fact there could very easily be a sudden failure of the system and an emergency in the food supply ie famine.
Gone are the farmers who knew the land, looked after it, respected the bees and the other processes in nature.
read more at http://www.newint.org/features/2009/09/01/keynote-why-are-bees-dying/
http://www.byronballinagreens.org/search/page1/bees.html
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